Artist of the Week: Agnes Obel

Berlin has always had a bit of a reputation. After David Bowie famously retreated there in the mid-1970s (to work on what would become a triptych of highly influential albums) it seemed as though the German capital would forever be the destination of choice for Europe’s artistic elite.

For Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel, however, the thought that she might be following in the footsteps of rock royalty like Bowie was the last thing on her mind when she emigrated to Berlin from Copenhagen five years ago.

“At first I was just in love with the city,” she explained while on a visit to New York last week. “I loved the fact that it’s so open and livable, and that, despite being so big, it doesn’t feel claustrophobic at all.”

After she moved into an apartment in a semi-abandoned DDR building (which, before the fall of the Berlin wall, was the former headquarters of East Germany’s official radio station and now houses hundreds of artists, filmmakers and musicians), Obel, who had spent much of her 20s playing in a variety of bands in her native Denmark, soon found herself working on a project of her own—borrowing equipment from friends and drawing inspiration from the vibrant community around her.

“I didn’t have a producer or a label, it was just something that made sense,” she continues. “It turns out Berlin is the perfect place to go to work on something like this because the whole pace of the city is really slow, so you don’t get stressed. You can get breakfast until five p.m., so if you want to sit at home and write a book or record an album, you can.”

After a German telecommunications company used a song she’d posted on her MySpace page in a commercial, Obel was signed to a label and, before she knew it, the album she recorded in her bedroom (now titled Philharmonics) was being released as her debut. Since then, Philharmonics, which is filled with somber piano chords, tender lyrics, and a gentle kind of hushed introspection, has become something of a phenomenon in Europe—going double platinum in Denmark and breaking into the Top Ten in half a dozen other countries. But, Obel is clear to point out, if it weren’t for Berlin’s inviting cultural landscape, she would never have discovered the uniquely personal sound which has brought her so much success.

“Everyone in Copenhagen was so much more career-oriented,” she continues. “The best thing about Berlin was that I got to be surrounded by people who pursue their ideas for themselves. I never thought about what the purpose of writing and recording would be, it just made sense because everybody around me was doing the same.”